Imagine this unfortunately familiar scenario: An officer clocks a speeding, swerving vehicle on a dark, wet roadway. It’s never a good scene, but the danger posed to other drivers outweighs the officer’s concerns for their own safety and they make a traffic stop.
At this point, any number of risks abound. The hostile and inebriated driver could refuse to cooperate with the officer’s commands or argue over what they perceive to be an unjust stop.
They might have a firearm. It might be storming. Despite the officer’s best efforts to control the situation, it becomes increasingly dangerous.
The officer must split attention between the driver, passing traffic and the tangle of technology in the patrol vehicle to write a citation, make a report or call for backup.
It’s a lot to pay attention to – and anything that pulls attention away from the scene increases risk.
Preparing for the unpredictable
Traffic stops remain one of the most unpredictable encounters in policing, and maintaining situational awareness is often the most critical factor in an officer’s safety. While most stops are routine and conclude without incident, a moment’s distraction from a dangerous scene can have tragic consequences.
Manual data entry, shifting focus to a laptop inside the vehicle, and handling a separate handheld device are three avoidable distractions. Each one pulls an officer’s attention away from what is happening at the traffic stop, thus putting them at risk.
To eliminate these and other avoidable traffic stop distractions, law enforcement agencies looking to reduce roadside risk should consider adopting tools and workflows that streamline essential tasks while demanding less human oversight.
Officer survey on traffic stops
In May 2025, Police1 surveyed almost 200 seasoned law enforcement officers about safety challenges they encounter during traffic stops.
Unsurprisingly, the top reason officers pull a driver over for a traffic stop is speeding, with 53% of all traffic stops being tied to this violation. Equipment violations (broken lights, no tags) account for 32% more. Hazardous driving (tailgating, aggressive maneuvers) comes in at 25%.
Besides risks like being struck by a vehicle while conducting a traffic stop, other risks include interacting with a non-compliant driver. Red flags identified by officers surveyed include drivers refusing to roll down their window or show identification or immediately asking why they were stopped. To reduce safety and liability risks when dealing with a non-compliant driver, officers emphasized having another officer present for backup, maintaining a calm demeanor and, importantly, staying aware of their surroundings.
But there’s more to managing these situations safely than just keeping one’s head on a swivel.
While training on traffic-stop related procedures is important, 58% of officers surveyed receive traffic stop training only once a year. A further 33% said they have never received traffic stop training at all.
Similarly, just under 50% reported no training on traffic-stop related technology, and 43% said such training is yearly.
The data reinforces what officers already know: time and attention are safety issues.
Compounded with challenges like non-compliant drivers, inattentive drivers causing a secondary accident or striking an officer conducting a traffic stop, awareness must remain at the center of every roadside encounter.
While annual training can help, it is not enough to counter daily distractions. While an officer cannot always control a driver’s behavior, connected technologies that are intuitive and easy to use are giving officers an edge by minimizing distractions, reducing time on the roadside by streamlining essential tasks and avoiding unnecessary handoffs between devices.
Safety through e-citations
E-citations – aka electronic traffic tickets – are a simple and cost-effective way to improve the safety and efficiency of traffic stops. Moving from time-consuming paper ticketing to digital e-citations using systems such as those made by Zebra Technologies makes the process faster, easier and more efficient for officers, while improving the flow of citation data from the road to the RMS.
Nearly two-thirds of officers surveyed reported that e-citation technology improves safety, with 44% saying it somewhat improves safety and 20% saying it significantly improves safety. Seven in 10 said e-citations allowed for faster ticket processing, 51% said they result in less paperwork (always the bane of law enforcement), and 50% said they result in better data integration.
Nearly three-quarters (74%) of surveyed officers believe e-citations should be standard across all agencies.
The next step in traffic stop safety
The Police1 survey makes a clear case: When a law enforcement agency reduces an officer’s reliance on manual, distracting processes during traffic stops, their safety and efficiency are increased thanks to using e-citations.
To improve traffic stops further, law enforcement agencies need to move past just digitizing tickets and move to a fully connected, single-device workflow. A whole range of different tasks – running a plate, checking records, scanning a license, issuing a citation and writing a full report – that often require different devices, cables and operating systems can be combined into a single integrated system.
Zebra Technologies’ ZEC500 Series Enterprise Computer makes this possible. The ZEC500 is a standalone Android computer that can transform any display and keyboard/mouse interface into an intelligent, multifunction computer. Its compact, space-saving design is the size and weight of a miniaturized computer router and it can even be mounted on the back of a 4K monitor.
With its wide range of capabilities, the ZEC500 can centralize many in-car functions for patrol officers, reducing their workload while reducing distractions. Through Zebra’s Wireless Workstation Connect software, the ZEC500 can connect directly to an officer’s e-citation handheld device. The result is an integrated data management experience both inside the car and out – allowing officers to focus more on what is happening around them, or less on machines and data entry.
Despite its small size, the ZEC500 is a rugged, capable device that is ready for police work. The standard ZEC500 can operate in temperatures ranging from 32 degrees to 104 degrees Fahrenheit, which is typical inside patrol cars. The extended temperature range model ZEC500 is ideal for operations in extreme environments from minus 20 degrees to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. And with IP54 sealing, both models of ZEC500 are dust-safe and able to survive the inevitable spills of coffee.
An integrated approach to improve traffic stop safety
The survey data makes it clear that enhanced traffic stop safety is an achievable goal. However, getting to this outcome requires an integrated approach to the problem.
First and foremost, officers need to be properly trained on how to manage traffic stops safely. In “6 tips for safe and successful traffic stops,” author Mike Wood suggests the following must-dos:
- Prepare for the stop from the moment you see the violation.
- Establish firm yet calm control of the stop from the outset.
- Use good approach tactics to avoid getting trapped between vehicles or hit by traffic.
- Never reach into the stopped person’s car, to avoid being injured or dragged.
- Take the time to do the stop safely.
- Don’t drop your guard even if the stop appears to be going well.
The safest traffic stop is often the shortest, least distracted one. Technological solutions that reduce officer distractions while improving their efficiency – like the ZEC500 Enterprise Computer combined with e-citation and Workstation Connect – are a smart way to make traffic stops safer for everyone.
While human nature is the uncontrollable aspect in most traffic stops, the right technology and workflows can shorten time on the roadside by making the process more efficient, reducing an officer’s cognitive load and strengthening their ability to read the scene in front of them.
For more information, visit Zebra.
